Whats the Name About? Part2: Gender Identity

Gender Identity.

Gender Identity is a relatively new concept, essential to transgender doctrine. Without the acceptance of Gender Identity as unchangeable intrinsic attribute of human beings, there is no sense in the insistence that gender identity should be what allows entry into women's spaces. Without Gender Identity there is no sense in guiding children into transition.

If Gender Identity is not unchangeable and intrinsic, it can be a choice, an liking for one group of stereotypes over another or it is illusion about ones sex, in which case gender dysphoria is a cognitive disorder,not an incorrect body.

If its a choice, thats fine, you can choose what you like, but you can't require everyone else to accept that your choice changes reality. If  its a choice, it can be an unwise choice and there is no requirement to accept children's choice as an unquestionable right.



Lets look at the trans definition of Gender:

From gender.wikia.com/wiki/Gender_Identity (A trans gender wiki)

Gender identity is a person's private sense of their own gender. This is separate from their assigned sex and appearance. Because gender identity is an internal experience, it cannot be assigned, diagnosed, measured or disproved by anyone else - a person's gender identity is their own.

This definition is presented as received wisdom across much of (liberal) feminism, the media and academia and informs much progressive policy in health and education.

This definition looks like a statement of scientific fact but it is ideological.

Gender Identity is considered by trans ideology to be fixed, its been there since birth, its more fundamental than sex, which is now considered merely a collection of characteristics http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Sex .

Gender identity is a person's private sense of their own gender.

This is circular:  X id is a persons private sense of their own X.

This is separate from their assigned sex and appearance

Assigned sex. This is a splendid piece of double think. I was there when my daughters sex was discovered. She was born, we checked everyone was OK and we looked, "Its a girl". No assigning took place, we discovered her sex.

Its also supposed to be independent of appearance, you don't have to pass, or try to pass https://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/this-transgender-woman-has-a-full-beard-and-she-couldnt-be-h you can look totally like a fat bloke with a beard http://www.daniellemuscato.com/. These men are fully accepted by the trans community, they are heroes, not embarrassing extremists.

Because gender identity is an internal experience, it cannot be assigned, diagnosed, measured or disproved by anyone else - a person's gender identity is their own. 

It can't be measured to disproved, so what can it be apart from a choice, a liking , an opinion or an illusion?

Its supposed to be a purely internal experience, so we can't compare it to anyone else's gender identity with referencing either people who have characteristics we consider feminine or masculine or things which we associate with masculinity or femininity.

If you have a gender identity, the rest of the world can only know from what you say. Every one has one. If you are unaware of your gender identity because you have cis privilege.

We are told that "it cannot be assigned, diagnosed, measured or disproved by anyone else" but the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria in children read like a list of sexist stereotypes from 1954.

Its nothing to do with sexual orientation, trans women (blokes in dresses) can still be attracted to women. They have to accepted as lesbians and the refusal of lesbians to consider having sex with trans-women, pre or post op has its own charming term - the cotton ceiling. 


It is explicitly (http://www.transequality.org/issues/resources/transgender-terminology) not required that a trans gender person has surgery, plans to have surgery,,or wishes to have surgery. You don't have to dig far to find the concept of the female penis https://transgenderreality.com/2015/11/20/its-a-girls-dick/

Transgender does not limit trans people to genders representing the two sexes, there are an ever increasing rainbow of new genders gender.wikia.com/wiki/Non-binary. So even if you don't accept gender stereotypes should apply to you, you have a gender identity and it is more important that your sex.

Its not sex, appearance or sexual orientation. All that is left is an internal feeling of how well we fit in it with what we consider to be the normal range of acceptable characteristics of one or the other sex. Or it can be a brand new non binary gender identity.


People have lots of strange or irrational personal beliefs. We manage to accept peoples beliefs in astrology, crystal healing, UFOs or speaking to the dead. We can respect these people and leave them alone  to keep their beliefs. So why does this matter?

Ideological Use Of Gender Identity.

 

Invasion of Women's spaces.

Now that gender identity, the internal feeling, is more real than sex, the biological attribute, spaces for women have to be open to all women, of whatever Assigned Sex.

The women's space in the news is toilets, but this applies to all women's space, changing rooms, prisons, feminist organisations, refuges and rape crisis centres.

A Canadian rape crisis centre was sued by a trans-woman who demanded to be taken on as a rape counsellor Vancouver Rape Relief. The case was eventually thrown out by the Canadian Supreme, Not only trans activists, but the NUS Women's campaign condemned the exclusion of trans-women from counselling women who have been raped by men nus-womens-campaign-condemns-transphobia.

Liberal Feminism has been co-opted, it now seems that the priority of all true feminists is to support trans women. Lesbians are being excluded from LGB organisations.

The tired old 1970's joke 'Womens lib just needs a bloke to organise it' has become true. At a time when women are sold into sexual slavery, the wage gap has stalled, acess to abortion is still problematic and abusive sex has been elevated int BDSM and informs bestselling novels, the most important liberal cause seems to be letting blokes into womens toilets and changing rooms.

 

Transitioning Children.

Children say weird things, Many children do not conform to stereotypical gender roles. They do not understand the ideological nature of gender identity. They believe teachers, doctors and parents. They are suggestible.

The NHS Gender dysphoria Symptoms would include many of us at some stage of our lives, Education Guidelines state that "teachers need to be explicitly positive and vocal about transgendered identities". This means that once a child says that they want to be the opposite sex teachers have to agree, use the correct pronouns and use a new name. They have to enforce this in other children. I can't think off a better way of alienating a kid from their peers, or making them dependant of the very people and belief system that has distanced them from their peers.

A boy likes playing with girls, or dolls, or gets bullied by boys for being a cissy, someone asks him if he would rather be a girl and he replies yes - he has gender dysphoria, he will start social transistion.

A girl like climbing trees, hates dresses, is shunned by other girls for being too big or too fat, or whatever, she has gender dysphoria, she will start social transistion.

A child has been abused then gets distressed by puberty and the physical, social and emotional changes that come with that. The distress is either expressed or interpreted as not wanting to be the adult sex that they are going up to, will start them or social transistion and puberty blockers.

Puberty blockers are sold as wait and see, just buying time option. They are tested for use with children with very early onset puberty, a physical condition that can cause real physical problems. Puberty is part of our physical and social development. By stopping it we are stopping brain development.

The changes of puberty, the moods, the sudden flood of sexual feeling, the body changes can be difficult, but they are part of the shared experience of growing up. By stopping puberty we are denying kids this shared experience, an experience that binds us to our generation and forges friendships that take us into adulthood. 

Childhood and puberty is hard. We have seen waves of fashions in diagnosis for the pains of growing up, We have seen eating disorders, depression, ADHD, autism, bi-polar, aspergers and now the latest is Gender Dysphoria.

A rational treatment for Gender Dysphoria would involve looking at the assumptions that limit the allowable behaviours, strengths and taste of euther sex. It would challenge the right of other people to define what we can do as women or men, girls or boys. It would examine our expectations  of sex and relationships, ask where those expectations come form, the effects of culture from art to port and everything in between.

It would mean helping the patient to accept their sex and find a way to live with the reality of being their sex. Transitioning would be a palliative, harm reducing option of last resort taken only after an informed, considered adult consent. Not sold to kids as escape from the restrictive, punitive and abusive prison (post) modern gender.